UT basketball: Longhorns eyeing the NCAAs? The time to win is now

AUSTIN — Texas finally won a close game Monday night. Now the Longhorns’ quest for an NCAA tournament berth might come down to a couple of plays, too.

UT's Alexis Wangmene, left, and Clint Chapman celebrate a close road win over rival A&M on Monday in College Station. (Nick de la Torre/Houston Chronicle)

Beginning Saturday at home against Kansas State, UT (15-9, 5-6 in the Big 12) has a seven-game season-concluding stretch that will determine whether it makes the NCAAs for a 14th consecutive season. Four of those games are against teams with losing Big 12 records, two are against Top 10 teams, and the other opponent (KSU) is 5-5 in league play.

That’s why beating the Wildcats might be the key to everything.

Before the Longhorns beat Texas A&M 70-68 in College Station on Monday, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi projected them as the second team out of the 68-team NCAA field. As of Tuesday morning, they ranked 56th in ESPN’s rundown of the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), and were 28th in Jeff Sagarin’s power ratings.

If they can hold onto those numbers and finish with a .500 record or better in the Big 12, there figures to be a good chance they’ll receive strong consideration for an at-large NCAA bid. Lunardi’s projected field — which includes teams like Minnesota, Arizona, Seton Hall and North Carolina State (which beat UT earlier this season) — is evidence of the field’s general weakness. A UT team that goes 19-12 overall, 9-9 in the Big 12 and then wins a conference tournament game actually would have a pretty decent resume, considering the competition.

To get to that point, the Longhorns need to win four of their last seven. The home game against Oklahoma and the trip to Texas Tech should be victories. Beating either Baylor or Kansas would require a significant upset, so let’s mark those down as losses. A pair of road games at Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are virtual coin tosses, so let’s say UT splits those two.

That leaves Saturday against KSU as the swing game. Last month, the Longhorns had a shot to beat the Wildcats in Manhattan, Kan., but a last-minute turnover on an exchange between Myck Kabongo and J’Covan Brown enabled KSU to escape, 84-80.

The Longhorns need to be just a possession or two better at home. Their season just might depend on it.